I haven't logged in or posted a comment in years...
What Mossberg and the vast majority of people bitching about cable tv don't understand is the content providers (the channels) are the ones that require bundling and the "linear style" video services.
The Viacom and Disney owned channels are perfect examples. For those of you that don't have kids - why are you required to have Nickelodeon and Disney? Do you really thing the cable provider cares what channels subscribed to?
For a long time competition was driven by the number of channels that were available to watch. Now, as those channels continue to charge the cable companies more and more every damn year, the market is pushing back a cost of service is more important. But large conglomerates (including Comcast and Time Warner / AT&T / DirecTV) hold the keys to access to a huge portion of the content that people want to watch. It will still be a long time before those entities change, if at all.
As someone that has designed, engineered, constructed, and operated FTTH deployments I am not surprised by this development at all. Just from reading the press releases and the associated documents it was clear that Google was not employing people with the necessary experience to pull it off. The time-frames that were in those releases were not fiscally feasible.
This particular issue is almost laughable in its incompetence. The only companies that are putting fiber optics in the power space of aerial power lines are power companies for a reason. It is prohibitively expensive labor wise and it is extremely difficult to get a power company to allow ANYONE that is not employed by them to work in this space. The liability issues alone are enough to cause this idea to be a non-starter.
It really isn't hard to do this properly, but the first step is to get yourself a copy of the NESC and actually read it.
At Mozilla, all I see is mismanagement. They can't control their code. They can't control their staff. And they are continually lagging behind all competition, which is especially sad given their rock star performance not too long ago, with social buzz propelling a large install base.
I agree with your observations whole heartily and it feels like a giant fuck you to me and I would assume to a lot of people that have been praising and endorsing Firefox for years.
I had 4 plugins out of 14 that were not compatible with ff5 and have 3 others that have not been updated to be compatible with 4 yet; must be my fault that I installed the wrong plugins right?
Your example is LAN to LAN and is typically significantly better than LAN to WAN on consumer routers and it's bullshit anyway as that would equate to 400Mbps for your transfer rate to the NFS and would only be capable with GigE to GigE over a wireline switch that eliminates the Layer3 capabilities of the consumer router. You completely missed the point and failed to grasp what is involved with LAN to WAN throughput on a consumer router...
There's a link to SmallNetBuilder's router charts in a reply to my parent post that shows there are consumer routers that can do it. But, that missed my point because I didn't state it clearly enough. Most people, including a significant number of people that consider themselves competent in this area, do not know that the current typical consumer router can only get about 30Mbps throughput. These routers also do not include the throughput in their specs on the boxes or on the site selling the device. As I stated in another reply; the new Linksys E1500 does NOT have 105 Mbps throughput in the lab on the wired LAN interface to the WAN interface. For comparison sakes; the Cisco ASA 5505 has a max firewall throughput of 150Mbps which is where I would start looking for comparable devices if I'm routing for a 105Mbps Internet connection.
You can't rely on any single factor for router throughput... that is significanly impacted by chipset, RAM, and the processor inside the device and the quality of the code running on it. Maybe this will bring about a change and we'll see WallyWorld carrying only routers that can handle this but that is a long way off.
And for the consumer OS... XP home could only do approx 25Mbps for layer3 throughput; I don't know what Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 Home Premium can do but I doubt it's 105 Mbps.
I'm assuming that you then have a lab similar to smallnetbuilder and have tested these in a real world scenario? When I talk consumer grade I mean sub $100 price range for these routers. Not upper consumer devices that have started coming out. I also mean consumer WalMart special computers... Or do you have some extensive experience with routing in these conditions with average Joe Sixpack?
Look at smallnetbuilder's router throughput tests... do those come any where close to real world conditions for the average person? And those are the best case scenario numbers for devices... show me the specs for those devices that show the throughput out of the box. Does a test of a computer running IxChariot on a LAN port to a computer running IxChariot on the WAN port really simulate the consumer with their virus riddled Windows 7 starter edition connected to a wireless router that has no clue on what other devices in their house is interfering with the signal and the effect that this interference has on their throughput.
In case you're wondering the new Linksys E1500 is sub 100Mbps for LAN to WAN throughput in these tests... So I say again where is the dearth of consumer grade routers that can handle this? Are there devices that can route this speed... yes and I didn't say there weren't.
But you clearly are a consumer product god so this will just be another "silliest comment on slashdot"
All this talk of the data cap... what consumer grade router is even capable of utilizing that speed? How about any consumer OS?
This is a marketing stunt and nothing more... or is there a slew of GigE WAN port consumer routers that can actually handle the routing at these speeds that I'm not aware of?
That's just robber baron justification and is not a statement of "fact"... Companies exist to provide a product or service with the *goal* of making as much as possible on that product or service. The pursuit of additional revenue does not justify unethical or unscrupulous behavior to reach that goal.
"As the sour economy and the Web start putting more pressure on the cable companies, they may be forced to consider breaking up the big bundles of channels they now insist that consumers buy and instead offer individual channels or smaller groups of channels on an à la carte basis."
Until the people that write these articles get the facts straight and discover that it's the content providers like ESPN/Disney, Scripps, Discovery, MTV Networks, Fox, NBC, and others that REQUIRE the carriage of so many channels in basic and DO NOT ALLOW a la carte channel purchasing the sooner there will be an actual change.
No people themselves have to choose to become better people / genetic engineering (anti-dysgenics)
If you're going advocate for genetic engineering to impose social beliefs then use the proper term of eugenics or at least inform us how "anti-dysgenics" is any less immoral than state enforced eugenics.
The problems stem for ignorance and false behaving based on false understanding, we let people have their animal prejudices not based on anything, other then personal distaste. I think that has to change in the future personally.
How would you like to dictate what people think? Should we impose laws that make it a crime to believe something different than the laws dictate. Maybe we should take it even further and make it illegal to look like a person doesn't think the way the Party wants everyone to think.
--sarcasm-- Obviously we can't let people continue to formulate their own thoughts or else they may continue to form their opinions, good or evil, based on their life experiences. We must instead force people to think the way that we think in order to make their lives better. Or, an even better solution, we can continue to use fear mongering through the media in order to make people see the importance of correcting the (insert issue of the week here) --/sarcasm--
I agree with you on the looks of the site and the selection.
I would also add the site lacks a lot of functionality that I require for an online music store that I would frequent for purchases. It doesn't have a description of the album other than the tracks, cover, and title. No reviews, description of the music within the album, no "similar to these artists". Basically, if you're not positive that these albums are exactly what you want you would have to look elsewhere to make sure, then come back to buy it (which you wouldn't do). The browse functionality is absolutely awful. The genre selection for the browsing does not allow for drilling down for more specific interests (again limiting any musical exploring you may want to do).
Add those problems to the limited advertising, limited selection and the "phishing" look of the site; it's no wonder the place is going under.
It's too bad that there are so many problems with it. The concept is one that I would be interested in supporting. It could be improved upon (lossless compression & OGG in addition to MP3 as a choice, singles discs / downloads, etc.) but it covered my main dislike of downloading MP3's (trading a CD quality track for a lossy compression download usually encumbered with DRM) with the purchase both aspect.
They could either provide any number of [cheaply made] set top boxes for free to their customers, or only provide the lifeline channels (lifeline = the dirt-cheap mostly-non-advertised package they're required to offer now) in analog leaving the rest of the bandwidth on their wires free for digital.
How is that different than what cable operators do today? The GP wanted to watch the non-premium digital tier of a cable operator, including HD channels, without a set top box.
But, since your comment can be applied to other service providers (satellite, IPTV providers) I'd ask you what you would define as a cheap set top box that a service provider should provide for *free* to their subscribers? Whatever price point you come up with, how would that enter into the business plan of the video provider? Should they provide free set tops for an unlimited number of TVs or just the first one? Would this set top box be expected to work with the same quality as a more expensive set top (fast channel changes, quality designed remote, optional remotes for the vision challenged, etc.)? I would love to know where I could find these cheap set tops.
By the way, since we're rapidly approaching the deadline for OTA stations to turn off their analog broadcasts can you point me to a cheap OTA tuner that I can use to receive these channels if I don't have access to cable TV? I would actually love to be able to receive the SD broadcasts currently available in my DMA but I can't seem to be able to find a set top box that will work with my analog TVs as the FCC has mandated.
Actually that seems reasonable. Are you saying that it's too much to ask for a public service to follow some sort of digital emissions standard?
The FCC seems capable of enforcing an emission standard for OTA broadcasts... wait I forgot large cable companies contribute to political campaigns - never mind.
Do you really want the FCC to dictate the signal that leaves a coaxial cable or Ethernet cable? That is what you are suggesting when you are talking about the connection to a video device (TV, Set top, Media Center, etc.) from a cable operator that must follow a "digital emissions standard".
Who should design the standard? Would this standard be enforced on video websites? Would this "digital emission standard" be enforced on all digital transmissions (it's all just packets at that point)?
Ah but, it must be because of political corruption that the FCC hasn't dictated that every American that has cable TV doesn't have to have *gasp* a set top box */gasp* to receive service.
The FCC has the authority to dictate Over The Air (OTA) standards because they are responsible (to the public) for the spectrum that video providers use to transmit the signal. Standard cable operators run into the FCC controls because they utilize the same spectrum in the transmission of their service, although their transmission is over a "closed" system (they do leak signal). Also, the FCC is starting to exert authority over other forms of service that do not utilize the same spectrum for transmitting the video (IPTV); their authority to do this is somewhat questionable at the moment, but it hasn't been challenged.
Do you have any idea the number of different video delivery methods that there are? The content providers can't decide on a standard delivery method to the cable operators (Analog, Digital, MPEG2, MPEG4, Encrypted, open, etc). Cable operators all use different encryption, middleware, delvery methods (HFC, FTTx, ADSL2+, etc.). TV manufacturers don't provide the same tuners in every TV (not all HD tv's have an ATSC tuner, some TVs - not all - have QAM tuners).
But you want the FCC to mandate that your cable provider provides an option that works with every TV so that you don't need a set top box.
By the way, if you have a standard HFC cable operator, then I bet if you had done some research and bought a HDTV with a QAM tuner then you probably wouldn't need a set top box. You could have also bought a HDTV with a cableCARD slot, but then you would bitch about the lack of some functionality.
You couldn't be more wrong. While you have paid for a few poles and wire, that does NOT represent "Most of the poles, wires, cables". You paid for either the secondary wiring and transmission to your residence, or for the primary run on your property to a transformer and then the secondary run to your house. More than likely, the wire and poles that you bought were secondary wiring and secondary assist poles which would cover your power service only.
Who do you think pays for the pad mounted transformers in underground routed subdivisions? For aerial power runs throught cities? Do you actually think that the owners of the property pay for these poles / transformers when they need replaced?
The best questions that I can think of are on the career path that the position puts you on. This type of question requires refinement based on the company and position that you are interviewing for. Basically, I try to find out if the position is a stepping stone for the future at the company or if it's the top of the path within that company. If it's a "foot in the door" position, I try to find out where that path leads in order to determine if any position along that path is where I want to be.
How much to charge is totally dependant on your market (home users, small business, etc.). I'm in Chicago and my customers are small businesses and the home networks of some doctors/lawyers/etc. I never charge less than $50/hour for on site services (that is a "friends and family" rate) and usually it is $75 or $100. Try not to under value your services too much, but also, you have to recognize your value in your individual marked.
As an example of a smaller market, I live in a rural community in northwest Ohio (A town of 400). I charge $30 an hour for "friends and family" and my rates for business vary from $55 to $125 hour depending on the service that they are asking for. $55 is for basic OS / software installation and $125 an hour is for consultation services on software selection for inventory management, enterprise resource planning, security, etc.
The real key is knowing which services you can charge more for and which ones you should offer at a discount. A lot of times "Friends and Family" services will lead to a new business account and a business account will lead to additional "Friends and Family" customers.
I, for one, would never purchase a product that required this level of security for my home entertainment. The only time I would consider giving my fingerprint or some other biometric data would be for a HIGH security job.
I don't trust any person at electronics stores with my SS#, why would I trust them with more personal information?
"This is a limatation of the FLAC codec as far as I understand, I'm pretty sure there was an update to it that allows streaming... But don't quote me on that it's late and I'm tired.
"
I thought that was what I saw on the forums, but I couldn't remember so I left the reason why out of my response. I tried using the downsampling settings to transcode from FLAC to MP3 on the fly for streaming, but I was unsuccessful. I'll check to see if there is an upgrade available for the codec installed on my machines.
I just installed Ampache on Monday and haven't had the time to play around with it. So far it has worked flawlessly with MP3 streaming and I haven't had any issues. I definitely like Ampache for listening to my music while at work.
I currently have Ampache installed with the majority of my collection in FLAC.
While it will "read" your FLAC collection, to my knowledge Ampache currently does not support streaming of FLAC encoded audio. If someone knows how to do it, I would like to know. (And I did search the forums and there were unanswered questions that addressed this so I didn't ask any myself)
You can still use Ampache on the local machine as a collection / playlist manager with FLAC, and it does work flawlessly over the net with MP3 streaming.
Whatever amounts or locations that you decide for any wiring (electrical, coax, cat3/5/6, speaker, fiber) install it in conduit. This gives you the ability to "upgrade" the wire in the future using the old as a pull wire for the new.
Then in specific locations that you feel may need future capabilities (entertainment areas, computer areas, etc) add a second spare conduit with a pull string installed for potential expansion.
One note, this can get VERY expensive so planning it to meet your budget while maximizing your flexibility is important. But, if you have the money, putting everything into conduit and have some spares in the walls can give you some peace of mind.
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I haven't logged in or posted a comment in years... What Mossberg and the vast majority of people bitching about cable tv don't understand is the content providers (the channels) are the ones that require bundling and the "linear style" video services. The Viacom and Disney owned channels are perfect examples. For those of you that don't have kids - why are you required to have Nickelodeon and Disney? Do you really thing the cable provider cares what channels subscribed to? For a long time competition was driven by the number of channels that were available to watch. Now, as those channels continue to charge the cable companies more and more every damn year, the market is pushing back a cost of service is more important. But large conglomerates (including Comcast and Time Warner / AT&T / DirecTV) hold the keys to access to a huge portion of the content that people want to watch. It will still be a long time before those entities change, if at all.
As someone that has designed, engineered, constructed, and operated FTTH deployments I am not surprised by this development at all. Just from reading the press releases and the associated documents it was clear that Google was not employing people with the necessary experience to pull it off. The time-frames that were in those releases were not fiscally feasible.
This particular issue is almost laughable in its incompetence. The only companies that are putting fiber optics in the power space of aerial power lines are power companies for a reason. It is prohibitively expensive labor wise and it is extremely difficult to get a power company to allow ANYONE that is not employed by them to work in this space. The liability issues alone are enough to cause this idea to be a non-starter.
It really isn't hard to do this properly, but the first step is to get yourself a copy of the NESC and actually read it.
At Mozilla, all I see is mismanagement. They can't control their code. They can't control their staff. And they are continually lagging behind all competition, which is especially sad given their rock star performance not too long ago, with social buzz propelling a large install base.
I agree with your observations whole heartily and it feels like a giant fuck you to me and I would assume to a lot of people that have been praising and endorsing Firefox for years.
Oh well; on to something else.
I had 4 plugins out of 14 that were not compatible with ff5 and have 3 others that have not been updated to be compatible with 4 yet; must be my fault that I installed the wrong plugins right?
Your example is LAN to LAN and is typically significantly better than LAN to WAN on consumer routers and it's bullshit anyway as that would equate to 400Mbps for your transfer rate to the NFS and would only be capable with GigE to GigE over a wireline switch that eliminates the Layer3 capabilities of the consumer router. You completely missed the point and failed to grasp what is involved with LAN to WAN throughput on a consumer router...
There's a link to SmallNetBuilder's router charts in a reply to my parent post that shows there are consumer routers that can do it. But, that missed my point because I didn't state it clearly enough. Most people, including a significant number of people that consider themselves competent in this area, do not know that the current typical consumer router can only get about 30Mbps throughput. These routers also do not include the throughput in their specs on the boxes or on the site selling the device. As I stated in another reply; the new Linksys E1500 does NOT have 105 Mbps throughput in the lab on the wired LAN interface to the WAN interface. For comparison sakes; the Cisco ASA 5505 has a max firewall throughput of 150Mbps which is where I would start looking for comparable devices if I'm routing for a 105Mbps Internet connection.
You can't rely on any single factor for router throughput... that is significanly impacted by chipset, RAM, and the processor inside the device and the quality of the code running on it. Maybe this will bring about a change and we'll see WallyWorld carrying only routers that can handle this but that is a long way off.
And for the consumer OS... XP home could only do approx 25Mbps for layer3 throughput; I don't know what Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 Home Premium can do but I doubt it's 105 Mbps.
I'm assuming that you then have a lab similar to smallnetbuilder and have tested these in a real world scenario? When I talk consumer grade I mean sub $100 price range for these routers. Not upper consumer devices that have started coming out. I also mean consumer WalMart special computers... Or do you have some extensive experience with routing in these conditions with average Joe Sixpack?
Look at smallnetbuilder's router throughput tests... do those come any where close to real world conditions for the average person? And those are the best case scenario numbers for devices... show me the specs for those devices that show the throughput out of the box. Does a test of a computer running IxChariot on a LAN port to a computer running IxChariot on the WAN port really simulate the consumer with their virus riddled Windows 7 starter edition connected to a wireless router that has no clue on what other devices in their house is interfering with the signal and the effect that this interference has on their throughput.
In case you're wondering the new Linksys E1500 is sub 100Mbps for LAN to WAN throughput in these tests... So I say again where is the dearth of consumer grade routers that can handle this? Are there devices that can route this speed... yes and I didn't say there weren't.
But you clearly are a consumer product god so this will just be another "silliest comment on slashdot"
All this talk of the data cap... what consumer grade router is even capable of utilizing that speed? How about any consumer OS? This is a marketing stunt and nothing more... or is there a slew of GigE WAN port consumer routers that can actually handle the routing at these speeds that I'm not aware of?
That's just robber baron justification and is not a statement of "fact"... Companies exist to provide a product or service with the *goal* of making as much as possible on that product or service. The pursuit of additional revenue does not justify unethical or unscrupulous behavior to reach that goal.
People will subscribe to the Journal or the Times when they live nowhere near NYC and never have.
It's a publication with a reputation.
Murdoch doesn't own anything like that.
um, Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal. News Corp is not just Fox and Fox News.
Here's the list of Newspaper and Informational holdings of News Corp from their own website: http://www.newscorp.com/operations/newspapers.html
"As the sour economy and the Web start putting more pressure on the cable companies, they may be forced to consider breaking up the big bundles of channels they now insist that consumers buy and instead offer individual channels or smaller groups of channels on an à la carte basis."
Until the people that write these articles get the facts straight and discover that it's the content providers like ESPN/Disney, Scripps, Discovery, MTV Networks, Fox, NBC, and others that REQUIRE the carriage of so many channels in basic and DO NOT ALLOW a la carte channel purchasing the sooner there will be an actual change.
No people themselves have to choose to become better people / genetic engineering (anti-dysgenics)
If you're going advocate for genetic engineering to impose social beliefs then use the proper term of eugenics or at least inform us how "anti-dysgenics" is any less immoral than state enforced eugenics.
The problems stem for ignorance and false behaving based on false understanding, we let people have their animal prejudices not based on anything, other then personal distaste. I think that has to change in the future personally.
How would you like to dictate what people think? Should we impose laws that make it a crime to believe something different than the laws dictate. Maybe we should take it even further and make it illegal to look like a person doesn't think the way the Party wants everyone to think.
--sarcasm-- Obviously we can't let people continue to formulate their own thoughts or else they may continue to form their opinions, good or evil, based on their life experiences. We must instead force people to think the way that we think in order to make their lives better. Or, an even better solution, we can continue to use fear mongering through the media in order to make people see the importance of correcting the (insert issue of the week here) --/sarcasm--
I agree with you on the looks of the site and the selection.
I would also add the site lacks a lot of functionality that I require for an online music store that I would frequent for purchases. It doesn't have a description of the album other than the tracks, cover, and title. No reviews, description of the music within the album, no "similar to these artists". Basically, if you're not positive that these albums are exactly what you want you would have to look elsewhere to make sure, then come back to buy it (which you wouldn't do). The browse functionality is absolutely awful. The genre selection for the browsing does not allow for drilling down for more specific interests (again limiting any musical exploring you may want to do).
Add those problems to the limited advertising, limited selection and the "phishing" look of the site; it's no wonder the place is going under.
It's too bad that there are so many problems with it. The concept is one that I would be interested in supporting. It could be improved upon (lossless compression & OGG in addition to MP3 as a choice, singles discs / downloads, etc.) but it covered my main dislike of downloading MP3's (trading a CD quality track for a lossy compression download usually encumbered with DRM) with the purchase both aspect.
How is that different than what cable operators do today? The GP wanted to watch the non-premium digital tier of a cable operator, including HD channels, without a set top box.
But, since your comment can be applied to other service providers (satellite, IPTV providers) I'd ask you what you would define as a cheap set top box that a service provider should provide for *free* to their subscribers? Whatever price point you come up with, how would that enter into the business plan of the video provider? Should they provide free set tops for an unlimited number of TVs or just the first one? Would this set top box be expected to work with the same quality as a more expensive set top (fast channel changes, quality designed remote, optional remotes for the vision challenged, etc.)? I would love to know where I could find these cheap set tops.
By the way, since we're rapidly approaching the deadline for OTA stations to turn off their analog broadcasts can you point me to a cheap OTA tuner that I can use to receive these channels if I don't have access to cable TV? I would actually love to be able to receive the SD broadcasts currently available in my DMA but I can't seem to be able to find a set top box that will work with my analog TVs as the FCC has mandated.
Actually that seems reasonable. Are you saying that it's too much to ask for a public service to follow some sort of digital emissions standard?
The FCC seems capable of enforcing an emission standard for OTA broadcasts... wait I forgot large cable companies contribute to political campaigns - never mind.
Do you really want the FCC to dictate the signal that leaves a coaxial cable or Ethernet cable? That is what you are suggesting when you are talking about the connection to a video device (TV, Set top, Media Center, etc.) from a cable operator that must follow a "digital emissions standard".
Who should design the standard? Would this standard be enforced on video websites? Would this "digital emission standard" be enforced on all digital transmissions (it's all just packets at that point)?
Ah but, it must be because of political corruption that the FCC hasn't dictated that every American that has cable TV doesn't have to have *gasp* a set top box */gasp* to receive service.
The FCC has the authority to dictate Over The Air (OTA) standards because they are responsible (to the public) for the spectrum that video providers use to transmit the signal. Standard cable operators run into the FCC controls because they utilize the same spectrum in the transmission of their service, although their transmission is over a "closed" system (they do leak signal). Also, the FCC is starting to exert authority over other forms of service that do not utilize the same spectrum for transmitting the video (IPTV); their authority to do this is somewhat questionable at the moment, but it hasn't been challenged.
Do you have any idea the number of different video delivery methods that there are? The content providers can't decide on a standard delivery method to the cable operators (Analog, Digital, MPEG2, MPEG4, Encrypted, open, etc). Cable operators all use different encryption, middleware, delvery methods (HFC, FTTx, ADSL2+, etc.). TV manufacturers don't provide the same tuners in every TV (not all HD tv's have an ATSC tuner, some TVs - not all - have QAM tuners).
But you want the FCC to mandate that your cable provider provides an option that works with every TV so that you don't need a set top box.
By the way, if you have a standard HFC cable operator, then I bet if you had done some research and bought a HDTV with a QAM tuner then you probably wouldn't need a set top box. You could have also bought a HDTV with a cableCARD slot, but then you would bitch about the lack of some functionality.
You couldn't be more wrong. While you have paid for a few poles and wire, that does NOT represent "Most of the poles, wires, cables". You paid for either the secondary wiring and transmission to your residence, or for the primary run on your property to a transformer and then the secondary run to your house. More than likely, the wire and poles that you bought were secondary wiring and secondary assist poles which would cover your power service only.
Who do you think pays for the pad mounted transformers in underground routed subdivisions? For aerial power runs throught cities? Do you actually think that the owners of the property pay for these poles / transformers when they need replaced?
The best questions that I can think of are on the career path that the position puts you on. This type of question requires refinement based on the company and position that you are interviewing for. Basically, I try to find out if the position is a stepping stone for the future at the company or if it's the top of the path within that company. If it's a "foot in the door" position, I try to find out where that path leads in order to determine if any position along that path is where I want to be.
1. Sysadmin :)</i>
2. Secretary
3. ???
4. I don't think "profit!" goes here, but it's something good I bet
4. Oops! babies and tax breaks!
How much to charge is totally dependant on your market (home users, small business, etc.). I'm in Chicago and my customers are small businesses and the home networks of some doctors/lawyers/etc. I never charge less than $50/hour for on site services (that is a "friends and family" rate) and usually it is $75 or $100. Try not to under value your services too much, but also, you have to recognize your value in your individual marked.
As an example of a smaller market, I live in a rural community in northwest Ohio (A town of 400). I charge $30 an hour for "friends and family" and my rates for business vary from $55 to $125 hour depending on the service that they are asking for. $55 is for basic OS / software installation and $125 an hour is for consultation services on software selection for inventory management, enterprise resource planning, security, etc.
The real key is knowing which services you can charge more for and which ones you should offer at a discount. A lot of times "Friends and Family" services will lead to a new business account and a business account will lead to additional "Friends and Family" customers.
I, for one, would never purchase a product that required this level of security for my home entertainment. The only time I would consider giving my fingerprint or some other biometric data would be for a HIGH security job.
I don't trust any person at electronics stores with my SS#, why would I trust them with more personal information?"This is a limatation of the FLAC codec as far as I understand, I'm pretty sure there was an update to it that allows streaming... But don't quote me on that it's late and I'm tired. "
I thought that was what I saw on the forums, but I couldn't remember so I left the reason why out of my response. I tried using the downsampling settings to transcode from FLAC to MP3 on the fly for streaming, but I was unsuccessful. I'll check to see if there is an upgrade available for the codec installed on my machines.
I just installed Ampache on Monday and haven't had the time to play around with it. So far it has worked flawlessly with MP3 streaming and I haven't had any issues. I definitely like Ampache for listening to my music while at work.
I currently have Ampache installed with the majority of my collection in FLAC.
While it will "read" your FLAC collection, to my knowledge Ampache currently does not support streaming of FLAC encoded audio. If someone knows how to do it, I would like to know. (And I did search the forums and there were unanswered questions that addressed this so I didn't ask any myself)
You can still use Ampache on the local machine as a collection / playlist manager with FLAC, and it does work flawlessly over the net with MP3 streaming.
You do know that "regulated" means well armed, right?
Whatever amounts or locations that you decide for any wiring (electrical, coax, cat3/5/6, speaker, fiber) install it in conduit. This gives you the ability to "upgrade" the wire in the future using the old as a pull wire for the new. Then in specific locations that you feel may need future capabilities (entertainment areas, computer areas, etc) add a second spare conduit with a pull string installed for potential expansion. One note, this can get VERY expensive so planning it to meet your budget while maximizing your flexibility is important. But, if you have the money, putting everything into conduit and have some spares in the walls can give you some peace of mind.